Superintendent Terry Grier and the school board have toughened the eligibility criteria to focus on teachers and campuses that rank near the top in student achievement gains, but some trustees say the system may need another overhaul.

"It really begs the question: Does making it harder to receive an award have the intended outcome of more kids having access to better instruction or not?" said trustee Anna Eastman. "I think that's something we have to study."

The district's performance pay program, launched seven years ago, continues to draw criticism from teacher groups that it is too complicated and unfair, though recipients applaud the extra money.

The bonuses ranged from $200 for teaching assistants to $15,000 for some principals.

Performance pay is seen by some as a key to reforming education by rewarding and retaining the most effective teachers. But research is inconclusive, and the programs are expensive.

The Houston Independent School District has distributed more than $220 million in bonuses since 2007, funded in part by federal and state grants that are drying up.

Texas, which once had the largest teacher merit pay program in the nation, phased out its grants last year after state lawmakers slashed funding.

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Trustee Mike Lunce­ford said HISD should consider directing the most money to elementary school teachers who work together to get students reading at grade level. Under the current formula, teachers of younger students are eligible for less because state exams don't start until third grade.

"Right now, there's a disconnect," he said. "A kindergarten teacher doesn't get any benefit - besides just being a good teacher - of staying after school helping that student read," he said. "It can be a divisive issue."

The higher standards this year required teachers and schools to rank in the top 20 percent, instead of the top quarter, to qualify for part of the bonus. And for the first time, teachers who received poor job evaluations - based on principals' observations as well as student performance - were excluded.

Top bonuses increase

Yet teachers who ranked at the top of the pack were rewarded more handsomely - with $13,000 bonuses, up from $9,000 last year.

The biggest checks went to 135 teachers, with most working at Burbank Middle, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, and Sharpstown International School, a combined middle and high school.

"Many teachers dedicated hours beyond the regular day to work with struggling students, including Saturday," said Thuy M. Le-Thai, the principal of Sharpstown International.

"Our teachers support each other and collaborate well as a professional community," she said. "There are many other teachers that deserve the appreciation for their tenacity and effectiveness."

About 5,180 employees received bonuses.

Union confused

Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers union, reiterated her concern that teachers don't understand or trust the bonus system. It relies largely on a complex statistical formula that measures whether students performed better than expected on standardized exams. It doesn't matter if the students passed the tests; improvement is the key factor.

"The standard thing I hear from them is, 'I got a bonus, and I have no clue what I did different from last year. However, I'll be more than happy to go spend it,' " Fallon said. "I'm not sure what the district really thinks they're buying."

A Rice University study released last year found that the HISD teachers who received bonuses were more likely the next year to stay on the job and to again boast bigger test score gains than those who didn't earn the money. However, the researchers said they could not conclude how the teachers would have performed without the bonus system.

Grier said in a statement that the bonuses were "another way HISD leadership can recognize the highest levels of effective teaching."

"Our teachers embody our core belief in the ability of every child to succeed in the classroom," said Grier, who received a $125,000 bonus this year.